Week 14
Monday to Wednesday
Camping. I did not run, but did get in some nice casual bike riding. There were also a couple of easy hour long hikes.

Thursday
I ran an easy route of just 2.84 miles. That took the place of my Monday easy run and my Wednesday speed workout. I feel totally ready for the marathon. Right now I am just trying to run consistently without injury. I have no real time goals for the race.

Friday
I did my long run on Friday since I knew I would be out early on Saturday taking in all the garage sales. The plan was a 12 mile run. I did 12.24 at 10:19 pace. Goal pace (according to the training plan) was 10:13. Though I was not trying, I got pretty close to the goal.

Week 15
Monday: Easy 2 miles.

Wednesday: 5 mile tempo run.

Saturday: Long run of 8 miles at 10:13 pace.

Week 14 started my taper. I have just 2 weeks to go for the marathon.

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Running
The goal is to run 1000 miles this year. I have accomplished 723.5. The month of September was my biggest month so far with 104 miles logged. I am needing to run a bit over 90 miles each month for the next 3 months to make the goal. It should be very do-able. I did these 100 miles in 12 runs. That is probably the least number of runs in a month all year, but there were 2 runs of 20 miles each.

I rode my bike quite a bit this month too. Getting the new road bike and being home more often really helped with that. I put 55 miles on my bike.

Reading
My reading has not gone as well as planned, but I am still hitting the books and pulling in content. If I knew a way to quantify my on-line reading, then my number of pages would go through the roof. I read 645 pages in 6 books. The only one of real interest is Metal Cowboy. I just started that this week and am really enjoying it. I plan to write a review of it soon. I read a book about Eric Liddell (the Chariots of Fire guy) and am reading another one about him. I plan to do a Missionary Talks episode about his life.

Just plugging away. Next month will be my marathon. I also will be away from home most of the month. My bike riding numbers will be almost nothing while my running and reading should get better.

Categories: Books, Running
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Week 13
Monday
Well, I am not sure why I am trying to stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Saturday plan. It is not working. No running on Monday or Tuesday. I biked on Monday instead. I got 18 miles in on a fun hard ride. Tuesday I did not run because of meeting with a pastor for breakfast. That is actually what I call work.

Wednesday
I am throwing out my speed work for this training session. I am just working on getting in the miles. I have determined that since my goal is to just finish this first marathon that I should do what I can to be well trained but not push myself toward injury. I have plenty of time for that in the future.

I ran 3.1 miles at a tempo workout pace. But it felt easy at the time. 8:50 per mile. I also rode my bike again that day. It was just an errand and not really a workout. But I did put in the miles, so I am counting it. I rode 12.5 miles.

Saturday
Thursday and Friday we were moving into our new house, therefore I did not run or bike. On Saturday I got in a great 20 mile run as prescribed by the training plan. I was slower than my goal pace for the day running at 11:32 per mile.

After that run, I feel ready. Mostly because I am tired of these long runs. Not that they are hard to do, but it is just hard to see the fun in running for 4 hours and never crossing a finish line. After this first marathon, the longer runs will probably not seem so bad since I can see how they pay off. I hope.

Week 14
Monday: Easy run, 2 miles.

Wednesday: 4X1600 at 8:11 pace.

Saturday: 12 mile long run.

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I ran by this manhole cover a few weeks ago for the first time. Since then on every run over 10 miles I have run down this road. When I saw it today I knew that I needed to snap a picture of it. Later this morning I was picking up an entertainment center that I found on Craig’s List and drove right by the manhole. I pulled out the phone and snapped a quick picture.

Of course what makes this interesting is the little orange sign by it informing you that it is a manhole. It even has an arrow to point you to the right direction in case the distance of 1 foot was too far to make the mental connection.

Actually, as you run farther down the road you begin to understand the sign, but this was the first one I had seen labled like this. As you get farther along the manholes move away from the road, but the little orange signs are there on the road in an easy to spot location so that you can know where the manholes are. Some of them are quite hard to see. With the bright orange sign workers are able to easily know where to begin looking for the manholes.

Funny at first glance.

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What happened?! I lost a week somewhere. Not only did I not blog about it, but it also almost did not happen. I still ran, but did not stick anywhere close to the plan.

Week 11
Monday was to be a short 2 mile run at easy pace. I caught up on my 20 mile long run. So the Monday run was pushed to Thursday. I ran 2.3 miles.

Wednesday was to be 7 miles of tempo running. I ran 2.85 on Friday at an easy pace.

Saturday was another long run of 16 miles. No run and the run I did do on Sunday was just 2.85 miles.

Totally out of whack.

Week 12
Monday: This was supposed to be a step back week. So instead of short runs during the week and a long run at the end, there were 3 longish runs scheduled. Monday was to be 7 easy. I ran 8.2 on Tuesday with PlaneT3rry.

Wednesday: To be 6 easy. I ran 2.3 at tempo pace.

Saturday: Another easy 6 miles. I ran my 16 miler from last week’s plan today. It ended up being a great run. I felt a bit stuffed after breakfast, but started on the run anyway. I had 2 gels and my CamelBak full of watered down Gatorade. Things just fell together well and I ran at a 10:39 pace. I did not take all my walk breaks. When it was over I was wishing that today was my marathon day. Everything just went smoothly.

Week 13
Monday: 2 miles easy.

Wednesday: 8 miles total with 4X1600 meter speed work at 8:11 pace.

Saturday: My second 20 mile long run. After this I start tapering back.

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